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Can you imagine what it would take to set a goal of signing up 10,000 home care workers in two weeks? With our Canvasser SOS app, one remarkable union did just that! Real time mobile data is an absolute game changer that will revolutionize the way you organize.

At Strategic Organizing Systems, we know that developing the best software is only half the battle. Organizations need to commit to finding staff at all levels of the organization to help in the design, testing and training program. We treat software implementation as a campaign by encouraging feedback from end users early on, building on initial victories and gaining confidence that encourages user adoption.

Salesforce, based in San Fransisco, was the first large company to develop a product in what we now call “The Cloud”. The product manages off site sales teams. Unions are often struggling in a parallel universe. Most staff work away from the local office and need to share and access data about their current and future members remotely. There are also hierarchies of staff, and the need to design extensive data sharing rules based on peoples roles within the organization. Evaluating and communicating with contacts, whether they are customers or union members share many similar workflows and requirements.
Over the years, Salesforce has moved from being a product to a development platform. Many of the tools organizing unions need are built into Salesforce.
Here are just a few:

Dashboards- to allow managers at every level get a birds eye view of real time data through customized graphs, charts, and tables.

Mobile Apps- even custom fields are available on your iphone or android immediately without any additional development.

Calendar/Task management- baked in along with tickelers/reminders for tasks

Chatter and Communities- which will allow the union to have it’s own private “facebook” designed for efficient staff communications and peer support.

Customizable fields and tables to build tools that speak union’s language and have not yet been designed.

S.O.S. is developing a variety of products on the Salesforce platform to improve the way union staff communicate with each other, manage projects and workflows, and continue to build a strong activists union with close ties to current and future members.

September 12, 2013 (San Francisco, CA) Strategic Organizing Systems (SOS) announced today its launch of customized Salesforce solutions focused on labor unions and other progressive organizations. Founded by the creator of the Organizers Toolbox, John Sladkus, SOS will help unions manage their work so they can build a more active and informed membership.

“The Organizers Toolbox set out to solve the problem for managing new organizing.” states John Sladkus, SOS founder. “Now we will create tools for local unions where workers are informed, active and proud to call themselves union members.”

SOS has chosen the Salesforce platform to deliver these solutions to unions. “When looking at Saleforce, I realized something immediately. Corporate America has spent millions of dollars refining a tool for selling. Couldn’t unions take advantage of this innovation and make it ours? I realized that unions no longer need to build tools from scratch or live in it’s own technology silo.”

SOS consultants will conduct a free two hour “Technology Fitness Exam”. We will learn about what is not working for you and offer advice on what you can improve. Here is a sample of some of the questions we will ask?

What system do you currently use to track your membership?

Are you able to send targeted emails to subsets of your membership and track who has been sent those emails within your membership system?

How easily to your reps/organizers have access to the membership database? Can they track their interactions with membership in that database? If not, how do they currently manage their work?

How do you currently track grievances? Are documents stored on line with each case for easy retrieval?

“Tracking and communicating with a statewide membership can be challenging. In partnering with SOS we now have comprehensive real-life member data right at our finger tips. Union reps and organizers can login remotely using smart phones to turf, task, record, and update member activity. With each phase we continue to build. As we prepare for negotiations with the University, SOS is helping us to strengthen our membership.

—Melissa Munio, Chief of Staff Teamsters Local 2010

“We hired SOS to make Salesforce speak our language and solve our every day problems. We now have a great way to ID leaders, track all of our member communications, prepare our members for negotiations, organize, track grievances, and find important documents fast. And on top of that most of this is available on our phones! We can’t wait to launch union wide. We are calling it our very own “UnionForce”.

—Peter Finn, Secretary-Treasurer, Teamsters Local 856

Strategic Organizing Systems develops customized cloud based software solutions on the Salesforce/Force platform. This platform enables us to develop the apps and customization you need quickly and efficiently. Here is a short list of the amazing features we can deliver for your union.

Dashboards- to allow managers at every level get a birds eye view of real time data through customized graphs, charts, and tables.

Mobile Apps- even custom fields are available on your iphone or android immediately without any additional development.

Event management- baked in along with tickelers/reminders for tasks

Case Management– for tracking grievances and encouraging rapid response to issues members have about their union representation.

Chatter and Communities– which will allow the union to have it’s own private “facebook” designed for efficient staff communications and peer support.

Customizable fields– if you need more, it’s there for you.

We can also leverage the thousands of apps already developed and available on the AppExchange. The AppExchange, similar to the Apple App Store, allows developers to design their own solutions that enhance the existing Salesforce CRM functionality. For example, Salesforce developers have already solved the following problems for our union clients:

Phone Banking

Mapping and Routing

Member Photos

Electronic Signatures

In the next few months, SOS will be adding our own union focused products to the AppExchange. For now, we will customize your Salesforce.com site or help you start from scratch to build what you need, when you need it.

Submit this form for a one hour presentation and discussion about how we can help your union. In this hour we will ask you lots of questions about what is working and not working in your union in regards to software, data silos, and communication strategies and needs. Then we will walk you through why we think our solutions can help your union solve these problems.